


The City That Has Never Been and Always Will Be or Strangers in Strange Places

by ModeAndMotive (ThistlesAndRoses)



Category: Original Work, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alice in Wonderland References, Did this for a school assignment, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Immigration & Emigration, Inspired by Real Events, Inspired by Welcome to Night Vale, LMAO, Metaphors, Omnipotence, Original Fiction, The first immigrants, the Other - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 20:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18506191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThistlesAndRoses/pseuds/ModeAndMotive
Summary: "The people of the City Where Time Isn’t Real were left alone to deal with the creatures that festered and thrived in dark places and snatched them up(slithering and writhing around every darkened street corner and decrepit garbage can, waiting with maws open and hungry). That was an everyday occurrence in the City Where Death Literally Waited Around Every Corner.Something strange was happening in the City Where Everything Strange Happens, something stranger than usual. Maybe it was because a Stranger had wandered into the town’s strangeness and started living in the house on Birch Avenue that was sometimes Crusher Drive."





	The City That Has Never Been and Always Will Be or Strangers in Strange Places

**Strangers in Strange Places** or **The City That Never Has Been and Always Will Be**

 

_“There is a monster under your bed. A monster at your window._

_A monster any place you imagine one. You project your monsters on the world.”_

-Welcome to Night Vale

 

 

* * *

The City That Has Never Been and Always Will Be sleeps with its eyes wide open in the town’s perpetual night.

Never truly starting and never truly ending, it simply was and wasn’t, bearing a thousand names and none at all.

In the City Full of Eyes, there were problems. It’s not as if the semi-omnipotent city council _(and they promise its only semi)_ will do anything. It takes a ritual sacrifice of twelve garden gnomes _(small ceramic pests, chipped and yet alive, each with its own pointy hat and cheerful smile, ever-smiling till it would meet its horrific, terrible end)_ just to get the local school’s computer lab fixed. It had not been updated since its conception in 1888.

The populace of garden gnomes had suffered greatly with the rise in the number of appeals the council received, and so the Wide-Eyed City decided that they would wait until the gnome population had risen to an acceptable number before commencing the new season of council appeals.

While the Watchful City waited for the garden gnome population to rise _(and hoped that the Gnomes would not gain proper sentience to rise up to try and overthrow their oppressors)_ they were left alone without their Council officials _(who they had never seen, never heard, in fact no mortal or immortal in town could remember when an election had even occurred--)_

The people of the City Where Time Isn’t Real were left alone to deal with the creatures that festered and thrived in dark places and snatched them up _(slithering and writhing around every darkened street corner and decrepit garbage can, waiting with maws open and hungry)_. That was an everyday occurrence in the City Where Death Literally Waited Around Every Corner.

Something strange was happening in the City Where Everything Strange Happens, something stranger than usual. Maybe it was because a Stranger had wandered into the town’s strangeness and started living in the house on Birch Avenue that was sometimes Crusher Drive.

 

* * *

 

The Stranger moved into the house and acted as strangers usually act: very strange.

The Stranger spoke in a way that puzzled the people of the arid dessert community and wherever The Stranger walked they would be followed by a thousand eyes more than the usual citizen.

The Stranger scared people in a way that the town they lived in never had before _(the town threw everything it had at its citizens to no avail, sometimes literally throwing it at them)._ The Stranger taught them to fear the unknown, an unknown only found in those dark places visited by few and far between.

Whilst the City Filled With The Known Unknown watched with uncertainty and fear, The Stranger, fresh-faced and wide-eyed, looked back at them with the same uncertainty and fear.

The Stranger, ( _who was never called a stranger, never made to feel strange, and never felt so_ ** _afraid_** _before coming to this town_ ) looked at the lonely street lights, framed by  shadows and monstrous buildings and eyes, _eyes everywhere always there when you turn around, always staring, never blinking, just watching_ , and shuddered under the immense weight of the unknown and the cold sting of isolation.

The Stranger, _(for here in this new place that was their name, this new place never bothered to learn who they were, just gave them a name that they thought most suited)_ , was alone.

Here where the city bore a thousand names _(some the public were not allowed to say for fear of angering the City; it was very sensitive)_ The Stranger was not even granted the right of their own true one _(sometimes it was hard to remember if they even had a true one)._

_(at times The Stranger wasn’t sure what was up or down or left or right anymore, sometimes The Stranger didn’t know if they were just this towns Stranger or something more once, sometimes The Stranger couldn’t remember life before the City, a life they had left behind and had no hope of returning to, and it was **terrifying**.)_

In The Town With No True Name, The Stranger was alone.

The Stranger stared back at the town eyes, never blinking, stared back with equal scrutiny, and watched the Town That Was Always Watched from an outsider’s perspective.

The Stranger was confused and scared of this new, strange place with its strange people and its strange, strange ways. _(Curiouser and curiouser)_

The Stranger didn’t understand why they did what they did or talked the way they talked.

The Stranger didn’t understand why the sun never fully rose and the stars twinkled ever so brightly or why glowing runes and glyphs would line the streets or why they would pulse with light wherever you walked. The Stranger didn’t understand why sometimes the desert sands would whisper while the few trees would speak in riddles.

The Stranger didn’t understand the significance of sacrificing twelve garden gnomes versus thirteen or why the streets would sometimes shift around making their residence and the buildings appear and disappear around town, sometimes they would come back fine other times there would be something inherently wrong _(it made reading maps difficult and trying to get around almost impossible, The Stranger would sometimes go out and stare at city maps and bus time tables for hours, trying to decipher every strange glyph and archaic phrase)._

The Stranger was thrown in the deep end to learn how to swim in cold frigid depths, learn how to survive in The Town Constantly Trying To Drag You Under. The Stranger was treading uncharted waters with naught even a grinning cat to guide the way.

Alone The Stranger hiked up their shoulders and strengthened their resolve and muddled their way through life.

The Stranger learned to read the city maps through trial and error _(life-threatening error after error)_ , had gotten a job at a diner near city centre and learned to speak from listening to people for hours.  The Stranger went to night school, researched in libraries and studied until their brain felt filled to the brim in order learn all they could about the town and its ways, all in an effort to not be _‘The Stranger’_ anymore, all in an effort to understand The Inconceivable Town _(and if far down the line, in the distant future, The Stranger accidentally became the foremost expert about the Town That Confused History and was one of the towns most renowned historians, well, we don’t talk about that)_

Somewhere along the way after months had passed, _or weeks? Years? It was so hard to keep track of how long it had been, how long had it been since- stop, don’t do that, don’t spiral._

After time had passed most of the town had slowly lost that fear that inspired suspicion and unease and accepted The Stranger as another aspect of the town. But The Stranger was still The Stranger, and they were okay with that, sort of. They were different than they were before coming to this town and that was okay, but they would really love their own name back.

 

* * *

 

The Stranger was walking down the street when someone caught their eye, someone different, new, a new stranger. As The Stranger watched this new person _(who looked so lost, so alone, so much like they did)_ a group of small garden gnomes _(hats pointy, chipped yet alive, ever-smiling_ ) darted out of an alleyway _(small ceramic feet clinking against harsh concrete as the pests giggled in search of a garden to pillage)_ and tripped them up.

The Stranger reached forward _(mannerisms polite, concern evident)_ , helped the disorientated new stranger up and asked if they were new to town _(they were)_ , the new stranger, fresh-faced and wide-eyed, had come to The Town Where You Could Start Over Again, a new beginning, just like The Stranger did in a time gone by.

The new stranger introduced herself, _in a tongue they hadn’t heard in such a long time_ , as Nora and asked for their name in return and The Stranger paused.

At that moment he vowed that the ones who would come hereafter would never be alone like he was, never be so isolated, that there would never be another _Stranger_ after him.

He shook her hand, offered to help show her around town and _(for the first time since coming to the Town Of Second Chances)_ truly introduced himself.

“ _Klaus.”_

 

* * *

 

_“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from_

_immigrants and revolutionists.”_

-Franklin D. Roosevelt

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this text for a school project. The prompt was to write about 'The Other', which is anyone who is viewed as the other side, separate and different, a good example of this would be aliens in sci-fi or even people of different cultures and races, such as immigrants like The Stranger.  
> I wanted to write about how disorientating and strange it can be for an immigrant to come to a new place, completely out of their element, and try to live.  
> Coming from a family of immigrants I had a lot of inspiration to draw upon. I thought that by setting the scene in a Night Vale inspired town as well as making references to Alice in Wonderland would help drive the point home. 
> 
> btw I got full marks on this story so I really wanted to share it with yall!!


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